On 11 September 2008, Malik Mannan stabbed his 26-year-old wife Sabina Akhtar to death. During their short marriage, he was violent to her on 25 separate occasions; two months before her death he threatened that he was going to come home with a knife and "slaughter" her. He is currently serving a life sentence. And who else to blame but Mannan for what was a truly despicable crime?

According to Sandra Horley of Refuge, we can also blame the police and the Crown Prosecution Service for Akhtar's horrendous murder. Horley believes that, under human rights legislation, the authorities had a duty to protect her right to life, a duty that they signally failed to carry out. Helena Kennedy QC agrees that there are sufficient grounds to sue the Greater Manchester Police and the CPS. They see this as a test case, one which may bring about a change in policy in the area of domestic violence.

So where do they say the system broke down? Following the death threat in July 2008, Mannan had been arrested and interviewed, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Under CPS advice he was released on conditional police bail pending further enquiries. He was arrested again, on 7 September, for breaching those conditions. The police and CPS were faced with a dilemma; breaching police bail conditions on its own is not an offence, yet they still had insufficient evidence with which to charge him. They had no alternative but to release him on police bail again. They acted properly within the law. Nevertheless, within four days of his release, Mannan brutally attacked and killed his wife.

The forthcoming Refuge case raises some very important questions. First, if Kennedy is right, and if this case succeeds, aren't we opening the doors to a deluge of similar cases? How can we hold the police responsible for crimes committed during their watch? Are they to post an armed guard outside the house of every person who makes a complaint that they have been threatened? How are they able to judge which of the complaints made to them will lead to actual violence and murder, and which amount to no more than idle threats bandied about in the heat of a row?

Second, Article 2 of the European convention on human rights requires that everyone's right to life should be protected by law, and no one shall be deprived of his or her right to life. But it is, frankly, a ridiculous notion that government departments can be held responsible for protecting the life of every citizen of the UK – even the police. What does Kennedy see as the outcome of such a proposition? If she succeeds in her argument, how could it possibly be limited to cases of domestic violence alone? At a time when the police are offering to walk people home after a night out if they feel unsafe, should someone who is mugged or raped while walking home on their own be able to sue the police for not accompanying them? The floodgates will open and the claims will gush forth.

Lastly, and perhaps more controversially, what does this tell the perpetrators of such heinous crimes? Do we really need to be giving them the message that while they may be responsible, perhaps it isn't entirely their own fault after all? Doesn't this belittle the memory of Sabina Akhtar – the notion that, after years of cruel violence, her husband's responsibility is somehow diminished by virtue of the fact that there is someone else to shoulder the blame too?

In 2008, the House of Lords, in a case not unlike that of Akhtar, ruled that there was no police liability if they failed to prevent such violent offences.

After ending their relationship, Stephen Smith was subjected to a stream of violent, abusive and threatening telephone, text and internet messages from his violent ex-partner, Gareth Jeffrey. Some of the messages were direct threats to kill.

On 24 February 2003 Smith dialled 999. Police visited him, but did not look at the messages, take a statement or make any notes of the meeting. He contacted the police twice further, frightened for his life. Then on 10 March 2003, Jeffrey attacked Smith with a claw hammer, causing him serious head injuries. Jeffrey is currently serving a 10-year sentence.

In his judgment, Lord Hope of Craighead said: "Police work elsewhere may be impeded if the police were required to treat every report from a member of the public that he or she is being threatened with violence as giving rise to a duty of care to take reasonable steps to prevent the alleged threat from being executed. (...) The judgment as to whether any given case is of that character must be left to the police."

On the day Mannan was sentenced, the CPS announced that it would be making a formal apology to Akhtar's family, and admitted they were "wrong" not to charge him earlier. Akhtar was tragically let down by the very procedures that were there to protect her. But, harsh though it may seem, what other possible approach can there be?

This article has been published in response to usini's request in a You tell us thread for Cif commenter BeautifulBurnout to write an article